Sunday, April 24, 2011

Sucker Punch = Angel Wars

So last night I found myself with a bit of free time and decided to go and see a movie. Since I missed Sucker Punch in theaters stateside, I figured I'd try my luck and see if I could catch it here in Japan.

For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, here's the trailer on Youtube:

This movie was directed by Zach Snyder, the same guy who helmed 300 and Watchmen. I loved both of those movies, so when I heard he was going to be doing a movie based entirely on original material instead of another graphic novel adaptation, I was thrilled.

It came out in theaters in the states just after I flew out to Okinawa to meet the USS BLUE RIDGE and apparently it didn't do well enough to stick around for very long in the box office. On top of that, apparently all the critics hated it. I don't know why. Hated it.

When I made my way to the local theater, it turned out that the local release of this particular film wasn't called "Sucker Punch." Instead, in Japan it was released as "Angel Wars."

Okay.

It was also redubbed entirely in Japanese. No subtitles.

Since I figured I was mostly going to see this particular film for the visual aspect of it anyway* I went ahead and watched it in Japanese.

Having seen the movie without being able to understand more than about a dozen words that were spoken, all I could say was "Wow!" I'm not sure what it could've been in the dialogue that made the movie such a flop, but when it comes out on DVD, I'll definitely own this video.

If you're a film critic, I implore you to watch this movie again in a language you don't understand so you can focus on all of the eye candy and the amazing optical roller coaster ride it was supposed to be. If you wanted something intellectual, resplendent with thematic elements and layered symbolism, go watch The Fountain instead.

In the meantime, I can't help thinking that the Japanese title "Angel Wars" reminds me for some reason of this great mash-up video by Youtube user Forensicator8. He re-did the Sucker Punch trailer as if it starred only Disney princesses. Check it out:

Fortunately, even in Japanese the music soundrack was still the same. So that's good.

*The effects promised to be amazing, so I wasn't just talking about a bunch of scantily-clad girls in a women-in-prison movie like so many of the titles in my DVD collection.**